We have no choice: we have to fight back. We have to do something to stop the onslaught on working people.  We have to do something to combat severe statewide budget cuts, deteriorating job opportunities, punitive welfare reform, extreme economic and racial inequality.  It’s not enough to work hard on an individual level in behalf of our families.  We also need to work hard at a social level, to change society and the policies that keep our families down. 

But what can we do?  How can we be effective?  Can we really get the powers-that-be to listen to us?  The answer is clear, whether we look at the past or we look at today:  Peoples’ power makes the difference!  When people organize, when we join together and use our advantage in numbers, when we use our power as voters and workers, society responds.  History proves that we the people have plenty of power when we choose to use it, and our society today is a much better place to live because of it.

Peoples’ Victories in Massachusetts:  A Few Examples

State Legislative Victories:

• Increasing the Minimum Wage:  In 1999, we won an increase in the minimum wage to $6.75, $1.50 higher than the current $5.25.  It wasn’t easy.  House Speaker Tom Finneran opposed any increase in the minimum wage when we started fighting for it in 1998, and prevented it from coming to a vote.  In 1999, under increased pressure, he agreed to a modest increase, 90 cents, but still strongly opposed the $1.50.  He also supported implementation of a sub-minimum wage for teenagers, a naked attempt to please employers by pitting younger and older workers against each other.   Yet in the end, he agreed to accept the $1.50 and to drop the sub-minimum wage.  What made the difference?  People power!  The Coalitions, Neighbor to Neighbor and ACORN held Speak-outs in New Bedford, Worcester, Lynn and Dorchester.  We organized hundreds of people to make phone calls and thousands to fill out postcards so our legislators would know how strongly people feel about this issue.  And it worked!
   
• Increasing Child Care Funding:  In the years between 1988-1996, state funding for child care for low-income working families declined, despite huge waiting lists.  In no year did funding increase.  Then all of a sudden, we had a $53 million increase in 1997, a $36 million increase in 1998, and $94 million in 1999, the largest increase in the history of Massachusetts!  What happened?  Did the legislature suddenly recognize the importance of child care?  Or perhaps it had more to do with pressure from activist groups concerned with child care.  Large Speak-Outs in Boston, New Bedford and Worcester organized by Coalition Against Poverty, Neighbor to Neighbor and Parents United for Child Care sent a message loud and clear to politicians.  So did thousands of petitions, hundreds of calls, and lots of meetings with legislators.
   
• Stopping statewide budget cuts and repealing the capital gains tax loophole.  In 2002, the Coalition for Social Justice, Coalition Against Poverty, Neighbor to Neighbor, public sector unions and several other statewide organizations joined together in a determined campaign to pass a large progressive tax package to stop extreme statewide budget cuts.  We helped to persuade the Mass. House of Representatives and the Senate to pass a $1.1 billion tax package, including closing the capital gains tax loophole, which made it possible to reverse many of the cuts.  Proportionate to the size of the economy, this was arguably the largest progressive tax increase in the country since World War II!  Key steps in the process included heavy turn-out and testimony at the State Legislature's Revenue Enhancement Hearings in Fall River, Lowell and Boston in March and 10,000 phone calls to legislators in April. No political expert thought the legislature would pass such a large or such a progressive tax increase, especially in an election year.

National Victories - Defeating Newt Gingrich’s Republican Revolution:

• In 1995-1996, the American people rose up and defeated the attempt by Newt Gingrich and the Republican Party to shred the social safety net.  The Republicans passed legislation that would have dismantled Medicaid and slashed $270 billion from Medicare, not to mention cutting student financial aid, the federal Earned Income Tax Credit and nearly every other social program that benefits ordinary people.  The American people rose up in rebellion, emboldening President Clinton to repeatedly veto Republican budgets, even at the cost of government shut-downs.  Even the federal welfare reform, which was the one piece of Gingrich’s agenda that ultimately was allowed to pass, to President Clinton’s discredit, had several of its most obnoxious provisions removed prior to passage.  In the 1996 election, Republicans discovered that their support for Newt Gingrich was political suicide, and had to moderate their positions in order to avoid getting slaughtered politically. 

Historical Peoples’ Victories

• In the 1930s, workers and unemployed succeeded in forcing the federal government to pass important protections that previously had been opposed:  minimum wage, unemployment compensation, Social Security, welfare, the right to organize into unions.  This was achieved through massive demonstrations, large groups blocking evictions, and militant strikes for union recognition, actions that were often led by socialists and communists.  At the same time, workers were extremely disciplined in voting for candidates that defended their interests and voting against candidates that opposed them.  The higher classes feared revolution and could not tolerate the continued disruption; politicians feared being drummed out of office by the working class majority.  Politicians who had previously voted against the minimum wage or unemployment compensation all of a sudden switched their votes.  In the 1936 election, despite overwhelming financial backing for the Republicans, the Democratic candidate Franklin Roosevelt won by a landslide because he was seen as a friend of the worker.
   
• In the 1960s, the civil rights movement organized massive demonstrations against segregation and for improved opportunities in housing, education and jobs.  Faced with militant protests, broad-based support among blacks, considerable backing from progressive whites and labor, and great moral pressure on a government which was under international scrutiny, Democratic politicians implemented significant reforms.  These included the Civil Rights laws of 1964, 1965 and 1968, which guaranteed the right to vote, made discrimination at work and in housing illegal and abolished segregated public facilities (e.g., bus stations, restaurants, movie theaters, water fountains.)  They also included measures to reduce economic disadvantage, including rental subsidies (Section 8), student financial aid, nutrition programs such as WIC and food stamps, remedial reading and math programs in public schools and legal services for the poor.
   
• In the 1960s and 1970s, the anti-war movement in the U.S. and in the military helped to force the U.S. government to end the Vietnam War.  Massive opposition to the war led President Lyndon Johnson to decline to seek re-election in 1968.  Protests of over 500,000 people rocked Washington in 1969, leading newly elected President Nixon to change his mind about using nuclear weapons in Vietnam.  Massive protests following the U.S. invasion of Cambodia in 1970, including a strike by 3 million college students, helped push forward the decision to start pulling out troops.  Also very important in this decision was the increasing resistance within the U.S. Armed Forces to carrying out the war effort.  Increasing numbers of “fraggings” (killings) of gung-ho officers were reported; GIs did not want to go into combat. Alienation of the GIs was reflected in a high rate of heroin use.  Anti-war GI papers were circulated on a massive scale.  The demoralization of the armed forces was even spreading into the elite units such as the Airborne Army units and the Marines.  Faced with all of this, keeping the U.S. troops in Vietnam became politically impossible.